Welcome to Twin Speech, Language & Literacy LLC! (Previously known as Twin Sisters Speech and Language Therapy LLC). Our mission is to make original theme based materials that are both useful and fun! We strive to make every single therapy session interactive, enjoyable, and very beneficial! We love being speech therapists and enjoy knowing that our students want to come back each and every week!

Tuesday, October 21, 2014

Hello blog visitors! Shanda and I are making a big announcement today! We have officially changed our name from Twin Sisters Speech & Language Therapy LLC to:

Twin Speech, Language & Literacy LLC!

Also, we moved our blog to a new location and gave it a brand new streamlined vintage look that included the re-invention of a new logo and banner! Yay! A whole new look for us! Please come and check it out. We would love for you to follow our blog by adding your name to our email sign up at the bottom right hand side of the home page!

Tuesday, October 7, 2014

We are doing some fire station themed activities this week in speech therapy because it is Fire Prevention Week! Here are some pictures to show what we have been up to:

First of all, thanks to Jenn over at Crazy Speech World, we had these super cute firetruck cover up pages and die.This student is actually working on his initial /F/ sound in words so the pictures of the firetrucks and firefighters really came in handy! He also needs to work on how to count correctly to #10, so I simply had him roll his firetruck die and cover up the amount of firetrucks that were rolled. He was asked to count the firetrucks that he covered out loud. He was also asked to count the total amount covered after he had rolled the firetruck die three and five times. Articulation was targeted by also asking for repeats of the /F/ sound on its own and in the word "fire" several times throughout the activity. You can pick this fun activity up over atJenn's Crazy Speech World's blog for FREE. Thanks Jenn! You are so nice for sharing this freebie and creative too!

And here's the best part. We of course used the metal tokens so that he could pick up all of the tokens with his magnetic wand afterwards! I have never met a kid who doesn't love using magnets in therapy! Did you know that you can buy Super Dupers Magnetic Wands and tokens separate instead of always stealing them from your Chipper Chat boxes? I just recently bought some extras. Here's a link to where you can buy them over at Super Duper Publications.

Now I want to share how I continued to use these fun firetruck cover up sheets with another student. This student is working on reducing his fronting phonological disorder. He often turns his initial /K/ sound in words into a /T/. For example: his cars are "tars" and his keys are "teas."

It really helps him to see pictures of his targeted words on minimal pairs cards and so I pulled out Speech2U's Minimal Pairs: Fronting/Backing Packet in order to use her /t/ vs /k/ minimal pairs flashcards (shown in picture below). This packet is fantastic by the way! It has pictures and activities for the common initial and final /t/ and /k/ substitution that I see so often, but also two other ones: /d/ and /g/ and /s/ and /sh/. Not only does she provide these clear and accurate pictures of minimal pairs in flashcard format in her packet, but she also includes a ton of activity suggestions on how to target them in fun therapy activities, minimal pairs sentences, rebus stories, homework pages and sorting mats. It's a very professional and impressive packet. Click on the picture below to link to it if you don't already own it. It's only $7.00 over at Kelly's Speech2U TPT Store. Personally, I think that is one of the most impressive documents that I've ever seen made available for sale over at Teachers Pay Teachers.

Roll the firetruck die, say your minimal pairs = a fun time and increased auditory discrimination of a fronting error!

And to finish up we added a craft and some grammar work into our sessions. One student made a firefighter paper plate mask and both had the opportunity to increase their pronoun and preposition understanding by playing our fire station themed board game from our own fire station themed unit called:

Fire Station Pronouns & Prepositions

This unit has 71 pages of fun and original pronoun and preposition targeted interactive activities, games, and worksheets for students in pre-K to third grade. This year we updated the packet to include some additional black and white sheets, the paper plate mask craft, and some illustrated preposition flashcards that are both fire station themed and also general themed so that they can be used year round. If you would like to pick it up this week during Fire Prevention Week you can save 40% off the cover price! Yay! Have a fun week in therapy friends!

Be safe and don't forget this tip (just given to me by my kindergartner after a firefighter came to his class to talk about fire safety.) He told me, "Mom, we need to have a meeting place outside in case there's a fire in the house, and don't forget that we need to Stop, Drop and Roll when we are hot and on fire." And after that he demonstrated how to do it on the kitchen floor! He's so cute and is learning so much in school!

Welcome to Twin Speech, Language & Literacy LLC & thank you for coming by to read about our latest therapy document. We have been working on this therapy packet for increasing speaking intelligibility for students and adults for several months now. We tried all of the exercises with our clients at our speech clinic and put their feedback and our thoughts into much consideration in order to come up with a finished product. Today we are super excited to say that we are finally ready to present the shiny new therapy packet to our audience! And like all of our new postings, we are presenting this one at an introductory 50% off price too. We hope that you can pick it up within the next 24 hours!

We work with a large variety of students and adults who are reduced in their speaking intelligibility and that is why this packet was developed. Some of this population includes people with the motor speech disorders of apraxia and dysarthria. Other people in this category have difficulty with their expressive language skills and have reduced intelligibility beyond the one word length. They especially have difficulty clearly communicating in multi-syllable words, sentences, and conversational speech.

This packet was designed to teach these people the six important speech techniques that we think are the most important to utilize to help increase overall speaking intelligibility. The techniques are as follows and a FREE handout of these speech techniques is contained within the preview by the way!

1) Increase speaking volume

2) Reduce rate of speech

3) Practice over-articulation

4) Improve breath support

5) Increase eye contact

6) Improve posture

These specific speech techniques are outlined in this packet and each one has a training section targeting the technique. Every section has a large variety of exercises that are illustrated with pictures and many of the sections have fun interactive worksheets, therapy exercises, and games.

Please download the preview at our TpT and/or TN store to read the contents of this massive packet and to see slides of many of the worksheets and games that are included in this helpful packet. We would like you to know exactly what you are purchasing before you do. Also, see the images below to see many of the worksheets and activities that are included in this unit!

We hope that this unit exceeds your expectations and we welcome any and all comments and feedback here or sent via email. We can be reached at: shandagaunt@gmail.com

Thank you so much for stopping by our Twin Speech, Language & Literacy TLLC today. We wish you all well and appreciate your support very much!

Friday, October 3, 2014

Attention: Twin sister bragging time is about to occur! Ready in 1, 2, 3... Here we go!

Yes, that's Shanda's name on the front of this awesome interactive apraxia treatment book!! She had a dream to share her specialized therapy activities with the world and she DID IT! Shanda has been treating the birth to five population for 17 + years and throughout those years, she has developed her own style of fun and interactive activities for helping to elicit talking in children with limited speech. And "yes" she has done JUST THAT (got little ones talking when they never did before) many times over! I have seen it myself and have heard back from more parents that I can recall that they think that she is an amazing therapist and that she was the person who helped them hear their child speak their very first words. Awesome, huh?!

Shanda has a way of getting children as young as one and others with speech apraxia to TALK!! She does it by utilizing a total communication approach that includes everything from teaching early sign language, visual phonics, production of early speech sounds, the use of PROMPT, the elicitation of early words that follow a cv, vc, vcv, cvcv, cvc pattern, and also by developing a picture exchange system if that is needed.

It's true! I've witnessed her program work over and over again. It really does work! I think that she is amazing!

One of the most wonderful things is that she can get little ones to concentrate on some interactive activities right up at the treatment table. These activities are always very fun and productive and I have witnessed the children laughing and smiling during their treatment sessions. They truly have a wonderful time when she is treating them. I've seen her elicit a TON of verbal productions from the children whom she is treating when she does these worksheet based activities. They include interactive activities like: saying and then gluing a picture with the targeted word onto a picture scene, dotting with a paint dotter next to the targeted picture, tracing lines to targeted sound productions, color by number, and even simple mazes and roll the die games, and much more!

She made these worksheets and activities for many years with her own computer because nothing quite like them were in existence. It's with that knowledge that she decided to put all of her years worth of work into one large treatment packet to share with other speech-language pathologists whom would appreciate having them too. She teamed up with Super Duper Publications, and WHALA!

Please come and take a look at it over at Super Duper Publications. It was just put up for sale two weeks ago and we hope that a lot of people can head over to Super Duper to check it out! We would love to see what you think. Perhaps you could try out some of the activities with your own speech students whom currently have a limited about of verbalizations to see if you too, can get a ton of repetitions like Shanda can! Just start at the level that your student is ready for. Perhaps it is the CV or the VC level? Or maybe they are a bit more advanced and can try the CVCV or CVC levels?

The workbook is HUGE and each section has a ton of activities and I think that you would be able to utilize it for many years to come and with a large variety of students on your caseload. There are four sections total: CV, VC, CVCV, and one for CVC words and a total of 160 reproducible activities inside.

I'm biased of course, but I'm quite sure you will LOVE this workbook and you will elicit a ton of verbalizations from your own students if you purchase it and give it a try in your therapy sessions!

Why don't you come and pick it up now? Super Duper is having a terrific sale for a short time. In fact, you can save 50% off any product of your choice right now by just entering the code: SWD50when you check out. Click here for a direct link.

Wednesday, October 1, 2014

Could it be my birthday? No. OK. Maybe it's Christmas? No. Hmm. No matter what, I feel super lucky and I have that excited feeling inside that is similar to the one a child gets when they were able to open their first present on Christmas morning! This is because I've just received a shiny new interactive set from SpeechPage.com Publishing Company, and I just know that I'm going to like what I see! I always love their materials! And "yes" it is exactly what I was hoping for! It is a full set of materials for targeting a language goal and it is all ready for me to take to the speech clinic tomorrow to start using right away!

SpeechPage.com materials are awesome. They all come laminated and even have Velcro dots applied to them. This makes my life EASY!! I look very prepared for a useful and interactive therapy session and the durability of the laminated product that comes in a storage bag means that I will be able to have this great set of materials for many years to come!

I already have five students in mind that I will use the product with this week alone. Can you imagine how many more times I'll use it in my therapy sessions in the next 15 to 20 years? Many more! So, good thing it is so durable, huh? I just know that this product will hold up to the usage amount!

This new awesome set is called "Interactive Illustrated Idioms 3A3B" It is actually a set of two different interactive idiom sets and I am lucky to now have for helping my own students understand idioms better. I have a total of 48 different colorful cards to use for working on the literal meaning of idioms. This is terrific! There are an estimated 2,500 idioms I read once, and I do have difficulty deciding on which ones to tackle sometimes, but I see that SpeechPages has made the decision for me already by selecting 48 of the most commonly used ones. Terrific! This idiom teaching has already turned into a PIECE OF CAKE!

What is an idiom?Here's a friendly reminder: It's a phrase that cannot be understood by just looking at the words. It is a phrase that can get used a lot by people, but if you haven't memorized the actual meaning of it, you would have NO IDEA what they are talking about!

For example:

"I GET A KICK OUT OF THAT."

"WE SEE EYE TO EYE."

"HE'S PULLING MY LEG."

I actually use these type of sayings all of the time in my own speech without even realizing that I'm saying them (I'm big on saying the, "EASY PEASY, LEMON SQUEEZY" and the "TAKE THE CAKE" ones! Many of my own students just look at me with puzzled looks on their faces and ask, "What does that mean Mrs. Manda?" If we say these saying in our own everyday speech, other people are doing it too of course! This means that we have to take the time to teach idioms to our own children and students. Increasing their understanding of the figurative language area of idioms will make them more effective at understanding and expressing language and that will improve their overall communication skills tons! Idioms are part of our language, but there's no way anyone will know what they mean if they don't practice using them and gain an understanding of both their literal and metaphorical meanings beforehand. This set of cards are going to be very helpful for illustrating exactly what each one means in a colorful and fun way. All we have to do is take the top card off the Velcro to see the literal meaning of the idiom underneath it. We could also take them all off and go on a search to find the meaning. This will give us an opportunity to practice listening, reading and memory skills too. If we don't find the match right away together than we will have to remember what we had read or seen. The pictures are cute, colorful, informative and the text is easy to read. I just know that they are going to initiate a lot of discussion about the fun teaching area of idioms!

One thing that I really like too is how the developers had the forethought to highlight the actual idiom on the card. This makes the actual words to be targeted for memorizing and use easy to see!

Now, who am I going to use these useful cards with? Well, the first students that come to mind are the ones that I see who are higher on the autism spectrum and need to come see me in order to work on social skills and to increase their higher level language understanding like figurative language. These students have a lot of difficulty memorizing the meaning of idioms and using them effectively in conversation. They seem a bit too abstract to them. They struggle to recognize them and to realize the differences between their literal and non-literal meanings. I will also present these cards to my younger language students who need to start hearing these sayings so that they can understand what their teachers and caregivers are trying to tell them. Working on idioms is appropriate I think for children ages 4 and higher.

These cards will make it fun to practice learning about then and they sure will help me continue to enjoy my job as a speech-language pathologist! I love helping children advance in their language skills. Yay!

I'm excited to utilize these in therapy very soon! Would you like your own set too? Why not head over to SpeechPages.com today to pick up your own and start helping your students today with the process of learning to recognize, understand, and use idioms in their own conversational speech productions. Your therapy session will not only turn into a HOLE IN ONE, but will also TAKE THE CAKE!! Also, you can see if this if can be a LUCKY DUCK by entering the Rafflecopter giveaway located below. SpeechPage.com Publishing Company is giving away one set of their Interactive Idioms. Isn't that awesome?!!! And remember, it's better to STRIKE WHILE THE IRON IS HOT and enter the giveaway right away because you don't want to miss your chance of winning this fantastic set of idiom teaching cards by the LUCK OF THE DRAW. The giveaway will only be posted for one week. Good luck!!

Best wishes,

Manda, SLP

Twin Speech, Language & Literacy LLC

Note: SpeechPages.com provided a free copy of this awesome idiom teaching packet for me in order to complete this review.

Thursday, September 25, 2014

Hi! I'm Kelly from Speech2u. I'm excited to share one of my favorite therapy products with you. Admittedly, I have a lot of favorites. I love games and toys cool and crafty Pinterest projects. I chose the ebook, Speech-Pictures! Analysis & Therapy by Char Boshart, MA CCC-SLP because it is a lifesaver for me when I have a client or student who is just NOT making progress with their articulation.

I've taken several classes from Char Boshart and highly recommend attending one if she comes to your area. She is an excellent presenter and I learned so much about articulation and the motor component for speech. I'm tongue-tied and it was in her class that I first realized most people can use their tongue to clear all the food in their mouth-including the food by their molars. I was really geeking out in her class.

I don't use this book with every client or student-I'm guessing I use it with about 5-10 percent of my caseload. Here's what I think is great about it. The beginning includes about pages of lingual capacity activities. I know that Oral motor therapy is considered controversial-but these are activities on a hierarchy-that are designed to teach the placement. If a child can't elevate his back tongue-he's probably not going to achieve a good /k/ or /r/ sound.

These activities work better one on one-and it is nice to get carryover at home-but I'm usually done with the program in about 2-4 weeks. I had a client years ago who was came to me at a private clinic where I used to work. He was going into second grade and was still fronting his /k/ and /g/s. He'd had other outpatient therapy and he was getting services in the schools. Knowing that he'd had speech therapy for probably 5 years, I knew that his therapist had tried all of the conventional tricks-and it was time to try something different. So we worked on the lingual capacity activities for back tongue movement. It took three weeks with the parents practicing at home-but we were able to get him producing the /k/ sound in all word positions. It doesn't work this great for every student or client-but it works for at least 50% of them which is awesome!

The second half of the book consists of in depth analysis of how we produce each sound as well as teaching tips and hierarchies for each sound. Each sound (r, s, sh, ch, t, d, k, g, f, v, th, l) is broken down by each articulator (ex. how does the jaw, sides of the tongue, mid tongue and tongue tip/lips move to produce each sound.) Common errors or distortions are discussed with potential treatment activities. Specific information on how hard or soft tissue abnormalities can impact speech are included along with possible compensatory treatment techniques.

The ebook costs $20.00 which is money well spent if you have ever had a tricky client or student who just wasn't making progress with their articulation goals.

Disclaimer-I am not affiliated with Char Boshart and did not receive any compensation for this review. I just really liked her book and wanted to share it with others.

Just click on the link to either store today! And have a fun, jumping into a pile of leaves with shouts of glee, biting into a sweet and juicy apple, pumpkin carving, trick-or-treating kind of FALL! :)

Sincerely,

Shanda Gaunt, M.S. CCC-SLP

Manda Riebel, M.A. CCC-SLP

Speech-Language Pathologists

Twin Speech, Language & Literacy LLC

P.S. Please follow our Facebook page by "liking" our page. It would be fantastic if you did because we are often posting therapy tips and doing giveaways there. You could be the next winner!

Thursday, September 11, 2014

Hi everyone,I have a student who is a very fast talker. He is only four and he loves cars, trains and anything boy! He needs cues to slow down his speech because when he talks super fast, he is almost impossible to understand! I tried using a pacing board with him last week, and I have also tried having him point to one syllable at a time on some multi-syllable word picture cards that I have, but those strategies did not seem to have an impact. That is when it hit me! I decided to take out the cars that he loves so much and "park" them after we played with them a little while. We gave them all a designated parking spot after working on his articulation goals together for the /K/ -/C/ sounds with words like: "park" "car"and "truck" and then we turned the parked cars into a visual pacing board.

He was asked to say one word as he tapped each parked car. He repeated phrases about himself that we had developed from an "All About Me" poster that we had put together from one of our Twin Speech units called: "Back To School Speech & Language Unit" (see below for a free copy of that worksheet). He instantly slowed down his speech and repeated every single word in each sentence about himself with a slow and accurate rate. It was wonderful to hear him say so much personal information about himself in such a slow and accurate way! It truly was a functional and productive therapy activity that I think may carry over into his life in a positive way. It is so good for kids to be able to talk about themselves and have others understand what they are saying like their names, family members, grade that they are in etc.. The other nice thing is that I noticed that he continued to talk slow in general conversation when the task was completed. We had so much fun doing this and it was an activity that really seemed to help him. I thought that I would share it to see if is something that you would like to try with your own students too. Best wishes, Manda, SLPTwin Speech, Language & Literacy LLC *Click HERE or on the picture below to be directed to google docs to obtain your own copy of the All About Me page.